6 Oct
1998
6 Oct
'98
1:20 a.m.
On Tue, 6 Oct 1998, Doug Yowza wrote:
Babbage was not the first to come up with the idea of
a computer, but you
can trace the development of modern computers back to him. You can't do
anything like that with Holt's chip -- it had no influence. Maybe there
were other Big Bangs before The Big Bang, but if they didn't create a
Universe, nobody cares.
I think this attitude in general carelessly disregards an amazing body of
work. In fact, I think people do care. I'm not so quick to sweep
historical facts underneath the carpet simply as a matter of convenience.
I'd rather know the complete and true story, and not just the easiest one
to remember.
Furthermore, you are are discounting the AMI microprocessors of the
early 70s, which Holt went on to design after the F14 CADC, and the
influence those chips may have had on later designs.
In fact, you are choosing to go along with the popular history written
years ago by a biased reporter that is perpetuated by lazy historians who
simply regurgitate the information they read in the last book rather than
doing real research and finding out there was more to the story, and that
there is history before the popular history. The picture is bigger than
the canvas it was painted on. I want to know what was beyond the frame.
I'm surprised you have this attitude when on the one hand you'd like to
see the HP9830 recognized as the first personal computer, rather than the
Altair 8800. By your own reasoning, the HP9830 wasn't the big bang, so
who cares?
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
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